Through all the debates about link-building and link-earning, one thing is clear: High-quality links are still an essential part of any SEO strategy. This post offers 12 of today's most effective and scalable tactics to build your link portfolio.

When I started to work as an SEO for an Australian-based SEO agency in early 2010, I never knew anything about the work (optimizing websites and building links to them) and definitely unsure of most of the things that I have worked on during that time.
All I did was to follow all the instructions given to me, build links in volume and research/learn all the basics of SEO from scratch. I got the hang of it after a couple of months, and I thought that I was doing great. Then I got fired.

Agree. And social can definitely make a bigger impact in the coming years. It's a different beast on its own, but definitely complements with what search is aiming to achieve - so it'll still be a vital metric that search engines might still pursue in the future - especially in monitoring brand-related metrics.

That's one perfect reason why content marketing (as a practice) is thriving these days. The quality of the ideas/information that a brand can provide to its target audience really plays a big role - not just in digital, since it's very much applicable to traditional marketing as well (effective brand messaging).

And the best way to really get connected with other trusted brands is to exemplify that you're on the same level as them.

Thanks! Brand building always play a huge role in any form of marketing - and the way it impacts SEO these days is very apparent. Which is why investing on it is really crucial to be really able to compete, especially when you're in the business for the long-haul.

Strongly agree with using branded terms (as anchor texts) for author bios instead, and the proximity of the key terms that help describe the brand is certainly a factor (co-occurrence) that search engines can also use to better understand what the brand is really about (and that could be the future of link building).

Yeah, looking at your industry horizontally and seeing other possible niches where your potential customers might be also interested in would be a good option to start a productive campaign.

As for metrics (for link building), you could also consider other things to measure for your prospects, such as:

- is the site getting good search traffic (so that in case you start publishing content for them you can assure that your content will get constant traffic through search, and eventually pass on traffic back to your site). I use SEMRush and/or Alexa to validate if the prospected site is getting good traffic (especially from countries that the business is mainly targeting).

- engagement is also another metric to consider - do they have a strong community and readership on their site/blog (in terms of social shares, ave. # of comments per post, ave # links per post, etc...). Since these things can assure that getting coverage from them will result to more brand impression and/or leads.

I'm sure that you'll do well as long as you're really passionate with what you're doing (solving other businesses' problems). There are so many factors to consider when it comes to gauging a brand's authority, and you can certainly demonstrate and prove it in so many ways - and I guess that's something that get many of us really excited about. SEO is a very competitive practice, and that's one thing that I'm personally proud of with what we are doing, and I really hope that it continues to be that way :D

Yeah, SEOQuake is one of my top 3 favorite SEO tools, been using it ever since I started doing SEO, and I've found some of its features really useful to other inbound marketing tasks that you wouldn't really expect :)

Thanks for the very insightful comment Samuel! (And I strongly agree that you definitely have to write those thoughts into a full-length blog post - and I'll definitely read it) :)

Obviously, digital marketing will always have to look back to the things that have already existed way even before digital marketing existed (knowing that "marketing" is really all about people, and understanding the things that will really switch their interests on). Google is certainly on this same path, and I'm sure that many of us have already sensed that in the past few years while they're launching several algorithmic updates that apparently have devastated a lot of sites accustomed to the old popular SEO ("shortcuts") practices.

It may be sad to see a lot of pre-panda practitioners quit doing SEO (because it's getting tougher each day), but you really have to be the fittest to survive in marketing - and SEO is a marketing practice.

I've actually been thinking of doing a post about this for a very long time (a real case study on marketing obscure or not-so-interesting niches) - just have to make sure that my clients approve of sharing their internal data though. Although, there are a lot of case studies here on the Moz blog that are somehow relevant to what you're looking for. But yeah, I'd definitely add this one on my to-do list! Thanks.

Agree - content is an element that helps a brand to effectively communicate with its target audience, so other factors such as design (as well as how you promote yourself/content) are very important too - to really make the most out of your campaigns.

Agree with the news part, especially when you look at it a wider perspective, as the entire "news section" of a website can be considered as a powerful asset (in which people may always use it as a reference or point other people to it for updated news about that certain industry).

And I couldn't agree more with content amplification - which is really a vital part of inbound marketing. As I've mentioned in the post, a great content wouldn't be able to move on its own, they all need a push to get straight to its target audience.

I'm always happy when people apply the things I share - I'm sure that all the other bloggers here feel the same way too whenever their works get appreciated. And I'm also glad that you've got your own insights from just trying the method out. Hope everything goes well with your campaign :)

Thanks for dropping by Jonathan - and thanks for noticing the Xight Interactive website :)

The site coming out very very soon! As for the reason why I didn't combine Xight and my SEO blog is that Kaiserthesage is a personal brand (that I've solely built from scratch), while Xight is a company that our core team has started as a group, so I believe that it deserves its own entity to be built on its own given that all of us have exerted individual efforts to make the company really work.

Yes! Also, there are ton of other successful websites in other industries that are killing it in content marketing. Just look at and observe the top blogs in the industry you're working on, and you'll get plenty of ideas/insights on how your space works in terms of content consumption.

As for small businesses, people will always find answers to their problems, and sometimes small businesses have the solution (product/information/service) to most people's problems - so the key is to provide the best answer (and the best way to demonstrate it is through content).

I also see a lot of startups pushing out great content, but as I've said also on the post above - a great content wouldn't move on its own - so if they're really confident with their content, then perhaps investing (money, time and effort) to heavily promote their content will sound very reasonable.

Regarding the "high bounce rate", this is just my observation: most of the landing pages that have high bounce rates (but are still able to convert visitors into leads) are long-form content, so basically a large portion of its incoming traffic just save/bookmark it and just return to read the post when they already have the time.

If you're building content for an app development firm, you can focus on topics that solve most common questions/problems by your target customers (or perhaps the problems that your own apps/products solve). You can also create ton of case studies in that field, I believe. Thanks Umar :)

Thanks for the question. With regards to republishing popular content from content platforms such as Facebook and Tumblr, I believe that as long as you give proper attribution to the original source of content it would still make perfect sense for your readers (especially if the subject of the content is something that your audience is really in to - you're just making a way for the content/information to reach them).

You can also use rel="canonical" to direct search engines to the original source of the content.

Agree, and it's the most scalable one from this list in my opinion. Seeing that as long as these external web properties/assets are ranking and able to attract targeted traffic through search, they can continue to refer visitors to your site that have high chances of converting.

Great idea for a next blog post. Thanks Hyderali! I'll take note of that content idea - although some of its aspects have been already discussed on the blog post I wrote last year (PlusBlogging), I think I can just update that one where I can include an extensive guide on how to write blog post-like content on Google+.

True. That's why FAQs are the best ones to start with when developing a content marketing strategy (as these contents get half of the job done - building awareness, solving a specific problem, serve as a platform for customer support and can eventually improve sales).

It's more of buying the content/webpage that already have links (not the entire website) - and if it's not possible then suggesting to help update the information covered by the content is another route that you can take (then get a link from that page itself).

Couldn't agree more. The method will definitely continue to offer great value, especially to people looking to get information and/or different perspectives. What's important is how you use the tactic (using it for branding and networking purposes will surely take you a long way).

I've tried it personally a couple months back (though more on curating the useful posts I've read each week).

As I've mentioned above, shares on Google+ are able to pass link equity (so the more shares you get for a URL hosted within your website, the more link value it gets). This can then directly impact the site's overall domain authority as well as the site's overall ranking ability.

Thanks for the advice James! And yeah, agree. Perhaps, the best way to utilize that tactic (repurposing an FB viral content on your own site) is to make it look somehow unique (ex: including your own insights, takeaways, etc...).

We've tested this approach recently, and it does work on attracting links, but of course getting links to your own original content ideas (not the republished ones) is still what matters most.

I believe that these initiatives will somehow impact the site's ability to convert visitors (I wrote something about this late last year - on conversion-oriented link building). Given that ethical link building is more of a branding tool these days, I think the practice's aim to build a solid brand presence will somehow reflect the ROI in the long run.

Bill (Sebald) did really well in coming up with that tool (outdated content finder) - it gave birth to a new marketing method - that genuinely helps webmasters provide relevant information to people in search of them (it's helping the web become better in someways).

True, especially when you're getting solid content from already established authors. It's also a great way to make new friends (that will certainly impact your social campaign) - that's why I believe it's a win-win strategy.

Been noticing this (amount of +1s as a ranking factor) for quite some time now, but didn't really pay much attention to it (as Google+ seems to only have made real impact on few verticals, mostly tech-related ones). But yeah, this is something that marketers/businesses should really be working on right now - for them to really compete these days in tougher SERPs.

Also, just remembered that I wrote 2 posts a year ago that are about growing presence in Google+, which might be helpful to other mozzers (that included some advice that weren't mentioned here - although this guide has been extremely comprehensive, no doubt about that!):

RE: How does Jason continually leverage his content to create traffic?

Nick was spot on with his answers on this question. Also, alongside the social shares and natural links that the post are able to continuously generate, getting the evergreen content to rank for informational terms creates more opportunity for the site to acquire more links/shares/traffic. That creates a never-ending sharing/linking/traffic generating cycle for the content (makes the process almost automated).

RE: How does Jason Plan His Evergreen Content?

Right, I look at search volume (and especially the terms' search trend). In creating the actual content, I mostly do SERP research, before doing the outline of the content, and see what my possible competitors are lacking at (information, delivery, etc...). That allows me to create a far more comprehensive content and can easily assess if the projected content will be evergreen basing on the information contained as well as dates when other similar content were published.

I'd say a mixture of both types of content will be a great strategy. The good thing about having both on post-launch is that it allows the brand to efficiently funnel its audience, given that they'll have more reasons to come back to the site.

I feel that the more SEO is being integrated to so many other aspects of online marketing (social, conversion, content marketing, etc..) the more the process as well as the reporting will get complicated, especially when it comes to link building.

Basing the campaign's metrics on the business' end goals could be something that be used by both parties to manage expectations and to set implementations/results based on a timeframe.

Hey Chenzo, it's awesome to meet people who also have experienced the same thing that I've experienced before :)About your question, my take on blogroll links is that it still matters, especially if seen in a bizdev perspective, seeing that it can somehow generate click-through visits, especially if you're getting it from blogs that already have readership and fanbase. In terms of it being a ranking signal, I'm thinking that it still passes value, particularly if both linking sites/pages are thematically relevant and are getting clicks from.

Hey Sha, yeah, that's why I also mentioned that people should use their coined terms more frequently to make it more popular. By doing that, the likelihood of owning the term is higher, in which others won't be able to claim the term :)

Thanks James! And thanks for the additional tip with the Wikipedia page creation :) They're pretty strict with the pages being added there, that's why it's really important to evaluate if the new page is going to add real value and should have all the credible sources in place to back it up.

About the Australian SEO company, I haven't heard anything from them again, I guess everyone's busy doing hardcore SEO these days.

Scaling this approach to link building (for agencies) to be able to cater more clients, may require more manpower - agree - though I also think that this can be scaled if agencies can form teams that will focus/specialize and distribute them to different tasks (research, content creation, outreach, design, analytics), so each department can handle multiple clients with that kind of structure, which is aside from the consultants/link developers assigned to each client (just my thoughts).